My (nonbroken) Version of the Ur-Priest

We all know it, the Ur Priest is terribly OP. Especially if progressed with other Classes, but even on its own, full Cleric Casting within 10 levels is too much.

Still, I always liked the idea of people strong willed and bold enough to ... aquire Divine power in a different way than grovelling.

So here is my version (sadly my table for the spell progression got shot without save, need one to quote, once I find one I`ll make it prettier, I promise^^).

As with almost all CLasses I build, it is meant for full 3.p. If using only 3.5, adjust the CLass Skills accordingly and reduce the Skillpts/Level by 2.




Thief of the Divine/Divine Bureaucrat



This Class (or rather Classes, as the Archetypes are quite distinct) somehow aquire enough Divine Energy to both cast divine Spells and manifest some form of Divine Powers.


Requirements:

Thief of the Divine: Chaotic Evil, Chaotic neutral or Neutral Evil, not able to cast divine Spells, Will Save 6+, Knowledge Arcane, Religion and Planes 5+.
Once a single Level of this class is taken, the character is unable to cast divine spells granted by any later means (like becoming a Cleric).

Thieves of the Divine **** on rules and simply rip their power from any Gods or lesser "Higher beings" that have the unfortunate luck to be affected. Sheer will and courage, nothing else, power them. They are selfish to the utmost extreme, almost always poster children for "Look after your own, and others be damned" attitudes.

They work best with other CLasses that go for power over Skill/Complexity/Obedience, like Sorcerers, Warlocks, Rogues and Barbarians.
They normally make skilled but not trustworthy Leaders.


Divine Bureaucrat: lawful Alignment, Will Save 6+, no ability to cast divine Spells of any kind, Knowledge Religion and History 7+, Knowledge Planes 5.
Once a single Level of this class is taken, the character is unable to cast divine spells granted by any later means (like becoming a Cleric).
Divine Bureaucrats know the loopholes in the Universes setup, and exploit them. The small holes within the planar laws allow them to acquire their power, and since closing these would mean reneging on the Pact primeval, they higher ups can do nothing but ignore them, otherwise more people might find the loopholes....
They are not evil, or doing wrong in their (or most lawfuls beings) eyes, but still, most Gods dont like having their noses poked towards what they did wrong....

Their devotion to Order, combined with their willingness to abuse it, make the Lawful Good versions very very rare, but allow all of them to work better with less lawful types than one would expect. Truly Chaotic people howeer disgust them enough that they avoid them whenever possible.
The Lawful Evil variants of this Class are very well liked by Asmodeus.

Basics (both):



Divine Bureaucrat/Thief of the Divine

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special
1st	+0	+2	+0	+2	Aura of Law/Chaos, DR 2/Law/Chaos
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Aquired Elemental Resistance
3rd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Aligned Spells (law or Chaos), Metamagic Gift
4th	+2	+4	+1	+4	Divine Insight or Divine Body
5th	+2	+4	+1	+4	Divine Imitation
6th	+3	+5	+2	+5	Permanent Protection from law or Chaos
7th	+3	+5	+2	+5	Telepathy (100ft) either Lawful Beings or Friends, DR 4/Law/Chaos
8th	+4	+6	+2	+6	Divine Grace
9th	+4	+6	+3	+6	Law/Chaoos Internalized
10th	+5	+7	+3	+7	Divine Soul, Taker of Power, DR 7/Law/Chaos

Hitdie: D8


Skillpts/Level: 6+Int Mod


Class Skills: Appraise, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (Plans, Religion, Arcane, History), Perception, Sense Motive.


Spellcasting:

The Class casts Spontaneously. The Casting Stat see the Archetype Descritpion.

Spells known:

Code:

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DB/TotD Spells known
===================================================
Level        1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
===================================================
1        2        -        -        -        -        -        -        -
2        3        1        -        -        -        -        -        -
3        4        2        -        -        -        -        -        -
4        4        3        1        -        -        -        -        -
5        4        4        2        -        -        -        -        -
6        4        4        3        1        -        -        -        -
7        4        4        3        2        1        -        -        -
8        4        4        3        3        2        1        -        -       
9        4        4        3        3        3        2        1        -       
10        4        4        3        3        3        2        2        1

---

They draw their Spells from the Cleric and Druid Lists.

Code:

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DB/TotD Spells/Day
===================================================
Level        1        2        3        4        5        6        7        8
===================================================
1        3        -        -        -        -        -        -        -
2        4        2        -        -        -        -        -        -
3        5        3        -        -        -        -        -        -
4        5        4        2        -        -        -        -        -
5        6        4        3        -        -        -        -        -
6        6        5        4        2        -        -        -        -
7        6        5        4        3        2        -        -        -
8        6        5        5        4        4        2        -        -       
9        6        5        5        5        4        3        1        -       
10        6        5        5        5        4        3        2        1

---

Bonus Spells per Day follow the regular Progression for Sorcerers.



Different:


Casting Stat for Divine Bureaucrats is Intelligence, for Thiefs of the Divine it is Charisma (both are also used to determine Bonus Spells as usual).

All "Chaos" tagged abilities in the table apply to the Thief, all "Law" tagged Abilities to the Bureaucrat.




Metamagic Gift: Somehow, you ... found a higher understanding of Metamagic. At level 3 either choose 2 Metamagic Feats or always consider Spells granted by this class as under the effects of the Still or Silent Spell Metamagic (choose once and for all).

Aligned Spells: You have internalized the path that led you to power. All your SPells are considered Law Aligned (DB) or Chaos Aligned (TotD).

Aquired Elemental Resistance: At this Level, you have ... aquired the power to resist the Elements. Choose 2 Energy types. You gain Resistance 10 against them.


At Level 4 choose one of the following: Divine Body: Strengthened by your ... liberated Energies, your body hardens. You gain +2 to one attribute and +2 natural Armor Class.
Divine Insight: You have glimpsed truths about many things. Choose 2 Skills. You gain a Bonus to all rolls made for them equal to your Level in this class. This is a Divine bonus, that cannot be negated by anything.



Divine Imitation: At Level 5, choose one of the following:

Energy Channeling: Requires Level 3 in this Class. Grants Channel Energy (as the Cleric). TotD always channel negative Energy, DB may choose depending on their alignment, as usual. The number of channels counts your level in this class+2 as levels in CLeric for its calculation.

Stolen Domains: Requires Level 5 in this class. Choose 1 Domain. You gain all the usual advantages, although you never learn their 9th Level Spell. Unlike your normal Casting, you cast domains as a cleric (meaning you get one Domain Slot per Spell level as usual).


Divine Grace: At Levle 8 your Mind transcends matter, and protects you. Applies the Bonus from its Casting Stat to all Saves.

Law/Chaos Internalized: At 9th Level you gain the law/Chaos Subtype. All Beings with the same Subtype can feel your deep connection to these energies. They always start one step closer to friendly (up to friendly) when first meeting you.

Divine Soul: Your permanent exposure to raw divine energy makes your soul resistant to many a danger. Becomes immune to all mind affecting, level or attribute draining or instantly killing spells from any divine Source. Gains +5 to saves against Arcane Spells of the same kind.

Taker of Power: Due to the fact that they acquired their powers all by themselves, these powers are harder for others to detect or counter. At tenth level all Scrying attempts/Divination attempts on spells/Magical workings of the DB/TotD are considered at -5 DC, all Attempts to Dispell Spells cast by the TotD/DB are also at -5DC.

This looks like a fine class... but I don't actually see a spell progression table?

I really like the idea of a class with two different entry requirements, and slightly different abilities.

Metamagic Gift is confusing- I suspect it is missing some words.

Yeah, I made the table, but my pc crashed and I lost it. And I really hate working with that code.
It's too late to make a new one, maybe I'll find one to copy later, as sadly my pre-made ones don't work with this forum (excel and such).


And yes, I think my keyboard might be dying. My 2 often does not work...


I'm happy you like it, and yes, that was the idea I had about Ur priestly classes for a long time: one Fina Ling around loopholes, the other simply taking what he wants....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GrayDeath

Yeah, I made the table, but my pc crashed and I lost it. And I really hate working with that code.
It's too late to make a new one, maybe I'll find one to copy later, as sadly my pre-made ones don't work with this forum (excel and such).

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1. Go here.
2. Reply with quote
3. Search for "Table: The Polymath" (that table has practically everything you could ever need when it comes to tables on these forums)
4. Do your stuff :smallwink:

Thanks a lot, will do once I'm home (horrible to do it with the phone, even if I had my data with me ;)).

Done.

And thanks again for the tables, honestly, entering those/making and modifying those is the biggest chore at Homebrewing ^^

Hmm!

Levels 3 and 5 are where a new spell level isn't gained, which is fine... but that doesn't quite match up with the class features in terms of a constant power level; I'd suggest moving Metamagic Gift to 3, and... hm. Not sure about 5, which does have a pretty good power.

Also, Divine Grace says its gained at level 7, but the table says level 8. Similar issue with Law/Chaos Internalized.

Divine Soul feels semi-redundant after Divine Grace + permanent Protection from alignment. Additionally, a lot of class features (other than the alignment-related ones) feel pretty generic- I could see a generic martial character with the skill/save/stat/energy resistance/DR features.
Maybe the optional feats you listed should become part of the PrC as a whole?
Maybe some kind of spellthief-esque abilities?

The elemental Resistance ones are more or less meant as powerwise placeholders. Ergo as a useful but in no way OP" thingy. It also somehow fits the "transformed by divine energy", but yeah, not as thematic as the rest.
Same for Divine Body, but that one fits the martials may easily enter" theme as well, after all this IS meant to be mainly for noncasters to get some Casting power...my other version included giving it Invocations...

Replcing them with SPellthief Light Abilities might work, but also make the class clearly more caster focussed (and much more complicated).

Ideas?


I kept the Optional feats out to avoid the class being Overpowered from the get go.

What do you think, making them choose between one of them at Level 5ish (and adjusting other feats of course)?

As for the Capstone Divine Soul: I had that set up before deciding to put divine Grace in, as it simply fits the theme so well, but youa re correct, it is a wee bit redundant (I mean not if youre aiming for a defensively built caster), so maybe remove that and add it as an optional Feat to be allowed at Levels 8+? In that case however, as redundant or not, it is still strong, we also need an alternative.


Also fixed the typos.

Quote:

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Replcing them with SPellthief Light Abilities might work, but also make the class clearly more caster focussed (and much more complicated).

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I mean... it is a casting PrC. I didn't enter it to be better at fighting, I entered it to steal magic from the gods themselves, and weld it against my foes. The number of non-casting features just feels like a distraction from what the PrC is really about.

Quote:

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I kept the Optional feats out to avoid the class being Overpowered from the get go.

What do you think, making them choose between one of them at Level 5ish (and adjusting other feats of course)?

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I don't see how leaving them out makes the class overpowered- you'd still almost certainly take them as feats anyway.
I don't see a lot of value in making class features into feats like that; they're so good in comparison to other feats that they're practically class features, and should be evaluated as part of the class anyway (see: Natural Spell & Druids), and really just crowd out more unusual or interesting feat choices due to sheer power.
In a 10-level PrC, where a majority of your build is devoted to this class anyway, there's practically no question about it.

Making them choose between them at level 5 sounds fine to me.

Quote:

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As for the Capstone Divine Soul: I had that set up before deciding to put divine Grace in, as it simply fits the theme so well, but youa re correct, it is a wee bit redundant (I mean not if youre aiming for a defensively built caster), so maybe remove that and add it as an optional Feat to be allowed at Levels 8+? In that case however, as redundant or not, it is still strong, we also need an alternative.

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Do you even need an alternative? Near-full casting is pretty big on its own.

I`ll add them a choosable On e or the other" Options at Level 5 then, and rearrange some other stuff.


As for the Spell Thief Light Stuff: I`ll see how I can integrate it. Prtobably going the Keep it as an SLA for X time" route. But to finish that today, its too late, methinks. :)


As for the Capstone: mechanically probably not. Thematically probably yes. And most of my classes aim to be as fluffy as possible. Gonna leave it in for now, redundant but good at times is good enough given the overall power, methinks. And maybe Inspiration will strike. :)